Yea. The ghosts suck. There's a mission late in the game (45-49?) where you have a full level of them.
I've noticed that the bosses are more difficult, but I've got a claws/regen so I'm still pulling thru. However, I was in a mission earlier in the day with one of my buddies who was playing an AR/Dev blaster.
We were doing his mission (I'm 37, he's 39) we had two other chars with us. A protector jumps him, I didn't even have a chance to try to draw agro when the debt meter dinged for him. I was still able to take the protector.
Blasters are supposed to be a bit fragile, but making every little mistake fatal is not making the game fun.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
[ QUOTE ]
I agress as well that the boss difficulty is not fair. I am a lvl 35 energy/energy blaster who...
[/ QUOTE ]
Wow. That sounds just like my past experiences. Before Issue 3 I was soloing 30-34 DE missions all the time with my e/e blaster. Not because I wanted to fight DE, but because my contacts would do nothing but put me up against them all the time. When Issue 3 went on test, I took my toon on there to check things out and got totally.....er.....eaten by an orange devoured boss. I had to come back with a full tray, to just barely kill it in time before the inspirations dropped. I went on to try another mission, this time the boss being red, used up all of my inspirations again...and they all dropped before I could get the boss below 50%. I had no chance at getting away.
Now I've managed to off a few bosses since this patch went live, but I know that I'm very, very glad I managed to pull into 35 and get a new set of contacts. The new DE contact I got is going to be very, very lonely.
[ QUOTE ]
If a player sees a boss of his level, he should probably get help...
[/ QUOTE ]
I have to say I dont like that statement ONE BIT!!!
I liked the fact that bosses were powerfull, had a ton of powers, were able to kill out quickly, in short were the greatest challenge on missions. I am always kinda dissappointed when a mission doesnt hold a boss. It was like the final showdown in a movie and something I worked toward to the whole mission.
If the improvement of bosses are...according to the Devs....meant to enforce teaming then I dont like them.
You could ve raised their power level abit instead of all the way.
You could ve made it so that a solo fight against a Boss keeps the same challenge but takes more time (thats what I thought would happen with the HP increase, not that you make them more powerfull at the same time).
You could ve left the decision to the player if he wanted to put in more effort or simply get a team. The PLAYERS decision
Instead you make the decision for your players and decide that we have to get a team in order to beat bosses our level.
I dont like the attitude........
Put a person at a table and let him decide what to eat. He ll be ordering what he likes and be happy with eating something to his taste.
Now rope that same person to the table, order something you THINK he likes and force-feed him. Obviously it should be the same reaction, just the removal of FREE CHOICE is different right?
See what type of reaction you get.
In conclusion.....honestly.....making bosses hit harder and have more hitpoints.....how long exactly did that take you to come up with in order to "up" the challenge? Eating a sandwich over lunch break?
The game has a lot of unique and extraordinarey features but this.....well......I bet my 8-year old cousin could ve come up with that (and does in our RPG sessions when he masters)
[ QUOTE ]
I am, and I know I'm not alone.
[/ QUOTE ]
I will too but I will NOT ASK for help, thats not me. If I cannot do it on my own I simply dont do it at all. I team because I WANT to, not because I HAVE to, big difference for me. Sometimes soloing becomes so tedious or boring that I decide to team up even tho I COULD continue to solo. That was my own decision tho.
See the difference?
[ QUOTE ]
first, forced grouping.
this seems to be a high priority for them lately. Don't ask me why, when the game was marketed and sold as solo-friendly.
[/ QUOTE ]
Exactly, forced teaming is the suck, why on earth would they enforce this when the most appealing thing of the game for me was it NOT HAVING it?
[ QUOTE ]
Why do we even bother to fight back?
[/ QUOTE ]
Right with the power increase criminals get in this game you wonder how Paragon City can still stand when all it needs is a group of enemy bosses to waltz through to the reactor core of TV and blow it to bits. I know of no hero-team that could stop em. Obviously every faction in the game has more then enough bosses available to do that.
[ QUOTE ]
That said: These are Statesman's changes and with his attitude, he's going to stick with them.
[/ QUOTE ]
I m afraid to say that with the history that guy has you are right 
[ QUOTE ]
Well I hope the datamining they will be doing this weekend for the monday morning meeting prove me right. That's all I have to say.
[/ QUOTE ]
I d LOVE to read from the devs what exactly they were doing during the testing phase of isse3 on the test server? Data mining? Balancing? (do we add 800% or 1000% damage...hummm) Please enlighten me. Cuz the way bos changes were introduced reeks of fiddeling-thumbs actions during that time.
[ QUOTE ]
You said it yourself that you didn't have to defeat him to finish the mission. Defeating the bad guy wasn't needed to "win the day."
[/ QUOTE ]
Woot we freed the hostages by sneaking past the human dibolical monster who planned to skin them alive on TV. We win the day! Lets get out of here and wait for the next call when this evil boss does the same thing again. Yeah right!
[ QUOTE ]
If you don't like that bosses are tougher, simply avoid them and go find another bossless group of mobs to kill...plain and simple. You might even find the exp faster if you do it right.
[/ QUOTE ]
Newsflash for you bub. Before the patch Lts were harder then minions and bosses were harder (by a great deal) then Lts. It was right that way. What the devs did was OVERDO it a bit on the power-up. People are not complaining about bosses being powerfull. THATS WHY THEY ARE BOSSES. People complain because the devs overdid it. Get it?
Oh oh, I should take a time-out. I m getting more and more agressive. While I was defending Issue3 and the devs this very morning when I logged onto the boards the more I read the more I feel the hate raising. not good.
See you all later when I calmed down some.
/hugs all
I am SURE devs will datamine amount of deaths since I3 is released.
Then they will realize something is wrong, as death is no way a "fun" feature in a game meant to make you feel heroic.
They would have realized that on test if a lot of players had played a lot/did a bunch of missions/ TF on test server.
My rad/rad defender died a dozen times on FF respec mission yesterday, it was fun as hell though as we managed to beat it.
BUT, if only one of us, and I mean just one, hadn't played with his best skills, that TF was undoable. Can some of you remind how respec TF was hard in the first hours it was implemented? Exactly the same feeling now.
I trust in Devs. They will read the amazing increase of death numbers in missions/TF/respec/Trials and then will lower the Boss ubberness.
This game cannot become the City of Hospitalized Heroes.
[ QUOTE ]
I am SURE devs will datamine amount of deaths since I3 is released.
Then they will realize something is wrong, as death is no way a "fun" feature in a game meant to make you feel heroic.
[/ QUOTE ]
Irrelevant, it's part of the VISIONtm.
[ QUOTE ]
They would have realized that on test if a lot of players had played a lot/did a bunch of missions/ TF on test server.
[/ QUOTE ]
Go to the Training Room forum. There are several long threads on just this issue - we did play, we did test, & we did offer feedback. (Occasionally very bitter feedback, but feedback all the same.) It made no difference; we didn't even get an "official" thread made on which to discuss this change while it was still on Test.
The only way deaths would occur significantly more often is if people refused to adapt to changes. It's sort of a self-punishment in that case.
If anyone can't figure out they need to be more careful than before about bosses they either have a minmaxed solo-friendly build, or have always had problems with bosses. For the rest of us, we're pretty smart and can adapt.
[ QUOTE ]
Actually, to be fair, there should be missions that can only be solo'd. Why discriminate only against solo'rs?
[/ QUOTE ]
Discriminate against SOLOERS? Doing that would discriminate against support heroes that lack offense (see my signature.)
There should be NO, absolutely NO content that is SOLO-ONLY in this game.
[ QUOTE ]
The only way deaths would occur significantly more often is if people refused to adapt to changes. It's sort of a self-punishment in that case.
If anyone can't figure out they need to be more careful than before about bosses they either have a minmaxed solo-friendly build, or have always had problems with bosses. For the rest of us, we're pretty smart and can adapt.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hey, with that thinking, you could be a Cryptic dev! Apply now!
Your right, we can adapt... Now my blaster can just avoid his missions altogether so he won't get beat down by generic bosses! YAY, how fun! Thank you for that nugget of wisdom...
[ QUOTE ]
Your taking the fun out of the game for those who like to solo, who only play 1-2 hours a day (Thus not using up valuable bandwidth) these people are the bread and butter of the game. They are the majority.
[/ QUOTE ]
Me, I worry that a lot of the sub-uber ATs are going to become even more scarce than they were before, especially in the controller lines. I think there's going to be considerably more shoehorning of people into the classes still able to handle bosses, which is going to give AT diversity a swift kick in the nads.
[ QUOTE ]
If a player sees a boss of his level, he should probably get help...
[/ QUOTE ]
States, I gotta say... I'm not real fond of this here statement.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It also leaves us in the hitherto unusual position of needing to get help *during* a mission, since we have no way of knowing beforehand whether or not there's going to be a boss in there. That will be awkward in timed missions.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's not true and you should know that. The same thing goes for timed mission. Many timed missions have still no warning in them.
To be exactly i don't even know a single mission telling you there is a boss in it.
All you get is defeat name. And there is no remark that the villain with that name is a boss or AV. You may know from outside sources which names are bosses AVs and so on. But ingame there is no such information, before you see them.
Please cite a single mission text that definitly says there is a boss, only a single one.
A name does not imply it's a boss there are many named lieutenants.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If a player sees a boss of his level, he should probably get help...
[/ QUOTE ]
States, I gotta say... I'm not real fond of this here statement.
[/ QUOTE ]
Woo, so 3 Minions = 1 hero, 1 Boss = 2 Heroes so that leaves... City of Lieutenants!
[ QUOTE ]
To be exactly i don't even know a single mission telling you there is a boss in it.
[/ QUOTE ]
Example of going in blind:
I got a mission last night to rescue some scientists that had been kidnapped by the Devouring Earth. Well, it turns out that a scientist named Dr. Amadeo Giacomo was, in fact, a Devoured. I don't recall having seen that mentioned. 
Y'know, in addition to AT diversity being chomped, I bet origin diversity will decrease, too. I think it was already the case that Science is an unpopular origin because Science contacts assign Vahzilok and Devouring Earth missions. Now people are going to have to think seriously about which bosses they're going to be able to defeat before selecting a concept... not what origin is most suited to the character they want to make. 
[ QUOTE ]
This has probably been said already, but I'm not going to read 15 pages to find out. Bosses have never been as easy as minions, because THEY'RE BOSSES! Nor should they ever be. A same-level boss has always been tougher than a same-level-lieutenant, which has always been tougher than a same-level minion. Bosses are two classes removed from minions.
If you don't like that bosses are tougher, simply avoid them and go find another bossless group of mobs to kill...plain and simple. You might even find the exp faster if you do it right.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thank you for explaining that bosses are tougher than minions and lieuts. I think everybody knew that already, since that's always been the case. In case you'd like to participate in the conversation, the question is the new RELATIVE toughness of bosses as compared to other enemies, which you didn't really address.
And your solution (go find other mobs to kill) doesn't do much for people who have missions with bosses in them, does it? Not everybody street sweeps 100% of the time.
We tried the 1st Striga TF last night, and it was pretty fun: until a warwolf boss plowed through our team, one-shotting us left and right. I saw one teammate go down (a blaster), then he nailed me (a controller).
Being one shotted has never been fun. Being one shotted by something other than an AV or monster just sucks.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's not true and you should know that.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think, by now, he does know that. Plenty of people have pointed it out.
I also think that he honestly *didn't* know that we were getting bosses in missions without any clear warning.
For my part, having played through the changes for a couple of days now, it's like this:
Soloing is now hard. It's not impossible, *except* for missions at the end of story arcs. Those have bosses out the wazoo. An *orange* boss, I can now take, though not without breaking sweat. A *red* boss fighting an *orange* LT, like at the end of the Path of the Dark arc - well, no. Especially not if he turns into another red boss after we drop him.
If I have this right, this now means that we can't finish story arcs on our own.
I think the Devs may be missing out on something important about superhero psychology here. Us heroes like to go one-on-one against powerful, or at least COLOURFUL, foes from time to time. It's part of the whole drama of the situation. Yes, teaming up to defeat archvillains is great. However, preventing a boss villain from executing his fiendish plan is *also* great. It's not always X-Men versus Galactus or FF versus Doctor Doom - sometimes it's Spidey versus Doc Ock, Batman versus Joker, One Hero fighting One Villain, trading insults all the way.
If the pedestrians are going to compliment me on my heroic deeds, I'd like to feel I've earned it! Last night, someone said in passing 'Lady Sadako defeated the most hideous Devouring Earth monster I've eve seen!' I had to reply 'Not without putting out a request for help, I didn't.'
I apologize if this has been mentioned before, but how is this:
[ QUOTE ]
If a player sees a boss of his level, he should probably get help...
[/ QUOTE ]
NOT forced grouping? What else has to happen before the "there is no forced grouping in City of Heroes" bandwagon-riders finally realize that that is EXACTLY the direction this game is going in?
At the current level, without adjusting the slider upwards (I am not even TOUCHING that thing) bosses can be found frequently in missions, sometimes there are even two, and more often than not, bosses are a level above. How does this NOT tie in with forced grouping?
I would very much like one of the devs to just come out and admit that this is their plan for this game. No more beating about the bush, no more avoiding questions or giving vague and ambigious answers. Just the plain and simple truth. At least that way, everyone will know what to expect.
[ QUOTE ]
I apologize if this has been mentioned before, but how is this:
[ QUOTE ]
If a player sees a boss of his level, he should probably get help...
[/ QUOTE ]
NOT forced grouping? What else has to happen before the "there is no forced grouping in City of Heroes" bandwagon-riders finally realize that that is EXACTLY the direction this game is going in?
At the current level, without adjusting the slider upwards (I am not even TOUCHING that thing) bosses can be found frequently in missions, sometimes there are even two, and more often than not, bosses are a level above. How does this NOT tie in with forced grouping?
I would very much like one of the devs to just come out and admit that this is their plan for this game. No more beating about the bush, no more avoiding questions or giving vague and ambigious answers. Just the plain and simple truth. At least that way, everyone will know what to expect.
[/ QUOTE ]
Your hoping for a lot, wanting a straight answer that is... I used to have some respect for the devs, but I've noticed how selective they are in what they will actually reply to. There are a lot of valid complaints here, which means the thread will be ignored.
Perhaps Cryptic should join forces with SOE.
I'm a super hero with 3 heroes, all lvl 32 when issue 3 came out. I have an emp/def (shelved until respec), a mind/kin controller, and an ice/ice blaster. I have had super groups, but b/c of time of gaming, different levels, etc., I often have to solo. I was looking forward to the difficulty "slider" so that when I had a grp, I could take on harder challenges, and when I was solo, I could opt to not be quite so challenged. With the new boss difficulty, I can't even touch the boss hps to finish a mission with my controller. Which means I cannot finish missions solo. I've had several missions where I have done everything, except kill my yellow con boss, simply b/c I (and my confused minion) can't even dent his hps. I'm trying not to whine, but finishing missions and filling up contacts is sometimes hard to do EVEN WHEN YOU HAVE A TEAM. A lot of times if you're not the highest lvl in the grp, you never get your missions done. SO even if I spend the majority of my actual xp gaining time teamed, if I want to fill in story arcs and get to know my contacts, which I like to do, I still have to solo. And the boss hps increase has essentially precluded this.
Well, here's what I was wondering about this Boss HP/Damage increase and all that madness (no I'm not happy about it either) however...I digress...
More than a few times Statesman has said that bosses weren't meant to be solo'able...for example:
[ QUOTE ]
Bosses weren't meant to be solo-able UNLESS a particular player used Inspirations & strategy.
[/ QUOTE ]
Okay and another example, though I couldn't find the original post so I'll have to paraphrase:
[ QUOTE ]
Bosses were NEVER meant to be solo'able.
[/ QUOTE ]
Same thing really but still...he continues to say this. (Excuse the all caps on that last NEVER as he may not have actually capitalized that complete word but I'm thinking he did). Whatever the case...
My question is this and one of the best questions I've ever come up with for this game I think, pardon me if someone else has already asked it, but...if Bosses were NEVER meant to be solo'able then why did it take 8 months to have them changed?
I mean bosses are a big part of this game. The sort of issue you would think the development team would want to get right from the get go or at least soon after. If bosses were not and have not been what they were originally intended to be and considering again they're a major facet of the game then WHY did it take EIGHT months to get these changes to them implemented?
Don't tell me it was something like "We just didn't consider it a pressing issue" or some nonsense like that. If they were "NEVER" and I quote "NEVER" supposed to be solo'able that should be a pretty big deal and it should have been changed a long time ago, am I not right?
This is one of the biggest reasons I feel "forced grouping" is exactly what's going on here.
Now let's take into account the "Inspirations and strategy" part. Well I'm all for use of both, I do use them both myself on a normal basis. HOWEVER, as annoying as it may be to have to leave a mission, run to a contact, get more inspirations and go back if you've used them all to defeat one of these new more powerful bosses, what IF that's not always possible?
Let's talk about TFs and the Respec Trial and such. Both of these game implements involve many bosses and or AVs/monsters. Also both of these things DO NOT allow you to buy inspirations once the TF is started.
Therefore, I am with a team and we are just now coming up against that thing at the end of the Numina TF, I forget what he's called but he's an AV or a Monster or whatever...anyhow, we have used all our inspirations due to other HP/Damage increased bosses on the way to the end and now we're all out due to just not enough inspiration drops. What do we do then? How do we use inspirations to help us out against these ridiculously hard new boss changes?
Okay, another example, let's talk about the Level 34 Terra Volta Respec a moment. Freak Tanks EVERYWHERE. On the way to the reactor it's cool, nothing too big going on so long as you have a solid team. You use your inspirations to defeat the Tanks on the way, no big. Get to the reactor and the first few waves are okay, not too difficult and then by the third wave you've got a few Freak Tanks coming for you...oops, I used up my inspirations on those Freak Tanks on the way to the reactor. What do I do now?
You make it through because you've got a good Defender or something. Then here come the waves with 4 and 5 Freak Tanks in them and oops, all out of inspirations still or at least not enough to do any real good because drops are infrequent. What now? Due to the fact the HP has been so greatly raised the team cannot defeat all the Tanks before the next wave comes and then you've got 8 Tanks on the floor with you, smashing at you and the reactor. One of these new increased HP/Damage Tanks one shots your Defender, it's impossible to revive because either a) you don't have an awaken or b) you couldn't even if you did due to so many enemies being around or c) (which happened to me the other night) a teammate revives you and you're one shotted again before you can get out of the way. Two defeats, Two times in debt and all because the bosses are too high and I couldn't buy anymore inspirations, not that they would have helped the way things are now anyway, especially against SO MANY bosses in that reactor.
So what are the answers to these questions? Help me understand because I certainly don't.
Perhaps part of it is forced grouping. Perhaps part of it what someone else said that "The Devs are the enemy". Perhaps it's because they just can't churn out higher level content enough so they figure Increasing Boss HP/Damage will keep people from outleveling the content before it can get put into the game.
And yes, yes I know...increased XP as well, you can still level...however who gives a good hot damn about that increased XP when I'm spending half of it to clear my XP debt due to the fact a generic Uber Boss fryed me? I'm all for increased XP and I love that until it becomes counter-productive to one another. There is NO benefit to increased XP when Bosses are taking heros out left and right. Lots of benefit if you live through it, I will give you that...but some things are just so hard now it's impossible to do that.
Anyhow, that's all. Take it for what's it's worth. I just thought these were some good points. Flame away if you like, I'm sure some of you will. Nothing but words on a computer screen to me.
I don't think that the devs are really that bad, but I do feel they are changing the game from what it was in beta. I wish they would have stated that they wanted higher level content to force grouping. I really dont like that. I left FFXI just because you had to group to do any thing. I really love this game because I can solo and feel like a hero or I can group and feel like a hero. I have a choice and I choose to do both but I want to choose to do them when I feel like it not because such and such a contact is only going to give me missions that need another player. Being two or even one shoted by a boss is not really that fun. I like a challenge but not a slaughter. I think bosses should be though but I think right now they are a little overboard. Running from a fight is not very heroic or fun. I had a mission last night that was the finish to a story arc and it had no less than 8 or 9 bosses (CoT, Warriors, Banished Pathogen) they were all yellow or orange. I have a claws/SR scrapper and the first boss I find used all my inspirations. After that it got ugly. The warrior boss two shoted me like I didn't have any secondary powers up. After that I had to run every other second to rest and then run back to take a little more life off. Every boss in that mission I had to run from at least 4 times. That is note very fun and it ended up being very boring. I liked the story that I got to read but it really wasn't worth it. I dont mind if a boss fight is tough and I have to rest afterwards or it's a really close fight and I almost die, but to run more that once is not very fun to me. I would suggest that they tone the bosses down or revert them back to their original stats and just make missions spawn bosses at +2 your level. That with the difficulty slider will make things more challenging for people who want a challenge. So far the majority of people liking the boss changes are people who are level 45 to 50. That right there should say some thing. Maybe they should scale bosses starting at 25 and then making them as tough as they are now at 45 or 50 that way bosses are still tough to people 25 to 45 and really tough to people above 45. I dont know what needs to be done but I think some thing should.
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
It also leaves us in the hitherto unusual position of needing to get help *during* a mission, since we have no way of knowing beforehand whether or not there's going to be a boss in there. That will be awkward in timed missions.
[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, if a boss will appear in a mission, the mission briefing mentions it. Check the text.
[/ QUOTE ]
Riiight. I still /bug a stealth timed mission every week it seems; there's no way every text is appropriately warning about bosses in a way that makes it clear they're bosses.
You make a lot of very valid points, and even if you could buy inspirations on a TF or the respect trial you can't just leave in the middle of all those mob attacking to go get inspirations.
[ QUOTE ]
At the current level, without adjusting the slider upwards (I am not even TOUCHING that thing)
[/ QUOTE ]
Soloists cannot touch that slider. I tested that slider extensively on Test because it was the second thing on my wish list for this game, and found that it only adds levels, it doesn't increase the chance of lieutenants or bosses. But in combination with the boss changes, it is a killer. Minions that are +3 levels aren't that much harder to kill than even con minions (for me, at least, Stone/Stone Tanker), but a +3 level Boss is ridiculous. And, despite Statesman's belief, it is very common to be surprised by a boss in a solo mission.
Scorus
[ QUOTE ]
I am left to wonder how horribly i would be absolutly slaughtered if i would change my difficulty lvl even a slight bit.
[/ QUOTE ]
I would like to raze the difficulty to have a little more of a challenge in my missions but I am afraid of getting a boss that I can't take. I have a level 26 Claws/SR scrapper and I am having a really tough time with bosses. In fact tonight I was running around Talos Island and I spotted a group I have never seen before (ghosts) All were level 24 1 minion, 1 lieutenant, and 1 boss. I couldn't beat them I have to run because they were killing me like it was nothing. I have FF, FS, PB, Hasten and CJ all on, and it was like they werent on at all. Hopefully things will change as I don't want to be forced to group.